As if it were "an ancient play for marionettes played by actors," Tambours Sur la Digue takes place on a rectangular wooden platform of a Noh stage, built up on tiers of huge timbers, like railroad ties bound together by rocks. Throughout most of the action, the set represents the heights of a Chinese village and its surroundings with other heights/steps in the rear, backdropped in various silks, colored or lit to represent, as they are dropped, changes of time, place, weather and mood. Into the dire situation -- the river is rising and threatens to wipe out village and inhabitants -- comes a parade of those involved in the impending flood.
The drama was suggested by contemporary Chinese decisions to build new dams without regard for the fate of the people in the areas that will be flooded. The politics of such a decision are taken mightily to task in many Brechtian episodes that show the motivations behind and effects of decisions by the sometimes-opposing Chancellor, Lord, and attendant bureaucrats, including influential men from the military, religion, and business. They are all controlled a bit in French tradition but mainly and surprisingly in the style of Japanese Bunraku puppetry, with manipulators clad in effacing black "handling," yet clearly responding to the emotions and ideas expressed by their puppet characters. The good-guy commoners include a "Mother Courage" figure, Madame Li the noodle seller -- complete with cart -- and her young servant; a group of fishermen finding control hard as they're blown about in the river (of silk extended across the stage);and the lantern merchant who can't keep his wares lit. A continuing drama pits bribe-taking construction and political high honchos against the architect, who dies to save face and is avenged by his brave and loving wife. The two most startling scenes climax each of the acts (of which -- and this is my only negative criticism -- the second might be pared of repetition by about twenty minutes).
Just before the intermission, a girl warns the villagers above the dike that it is crumbling before the waters which are rising with great speed. As the handlers climb up on the rafters, they throw down and move ropes attached to drummers below, who then begin to pound furiously as a warning and as a ritual to try and ward off evil. It brings forth the most stirring of the always-appropriate music, composed and played on strange and wonderful instruments, played by Jean-Jacques Lemetre.
Before the finale, the wooden planks of the stage platform are removed to indicate the village flooding, into which the manipulators throw cloth puppets made up to look in miniature like the drama's characters. The surviving maker of marionettes then wades neck-deep to line up the"dolls" at the front "shore" as the manipulators join them, having doffed their black robes and head covers and come to the sides of the platform forthe curtain call. Although the text has never been beside the point, it's far from literary and yields to sound and sights as what make the drama so astounding. An indelible experience.
